This week our neighbor’s dog killed one of our roosters, Lester. And we have one hen nowhere to be seen. So the chickens are not going to be free ranging for a little while. They are back in their yard. I miss seeing them all over the place and miss throwing them treats out the window, but we want to keep them safe. We were feeling so grateful that our dogs were being so great with the chickens and that our neighbor’s dog was too. We felt so lucky! Our neighbor’s dog was always great around them and then one day I found him on top of Lester. We let him know what he did was not okay and I hope he learned his lesson (our dogs eventually did, thankfully!) So now we are down to 19 chickens.

The goats are drying up. We only milk Bendi a few times a week now. We get such a little amount I just give it to the dogs, it’s not enough to even go through the work of straining it. I sure miss homemade goat’s milk kefir for making smoothies! And I miss goat cheese…. boy will I be happy in the Spring when we have milk again! I am so grateful that we still have eggs, which is an important part of our daily diet. I started trimming the goat’s hooves today and they were so much fussier than usual. I think they are getting cabin fever. Brandi (the queen) has been picking on everyone a lot more than usual. Maybe I need to take them out on a nice long walk this weekend so they can do some grazing.. that ought to cheer them up. And I always enjoy it too.